Multnomah-Umatilla County OR Archives Biographies.....Wilson, Bert C. 1877 - 
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Ila L. Wakley iwakley@msn.com May 28, 2009, 6:47 pm

Author: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company

     BERT C. WILSON, of Portland, general claim agent for the Union Pacific 
lines in Oregon, holds a position which requires the exercise of mature 
judgment and keen discrimination, and the fact that he has been retained in 
this position for a number of years stands in strong evidence of the able and 
satisfactory manner in which he has discharged his official duties. Mr. Wilson 
was born in La Crosse, Wisconsin, in 1877, and is a son of Calvin L. and 
Elizabeth (Keizer) Wilson. His father was born in Grant county, Wisconsin, and 
was a son of William Wilson, a native of Carrolton, Indiana, who became a 
pioneer settler in Wisconsin. In 1878 he started for California, with a team 
and wagon, but was never heard from again and it is presumed that he was 
killed. Calvin L. Wilson came west in April, 1886, locating at Wallace, Idaho, 
the family coming out in the spring of the following year. In Wisconsin he had 
been employed as a timber cruiser and scaler, but in Idaho he followed the 
tinning business to the time of his death, which occurred in 1905. His widow 
now resides in Los Angeles, California. She is a daughter of Adam Keizer, who 
was one of a group of Dutch colonists who settled in La Crosse county, 
Wisconsin, in 1845, and there took up homesteads. Their descendants are now 
scattered throughout the United States.

      Bert C. Wilson is indebted to the public schools for his educational 
training and he accompanied his family on their removal to Idaho in 1887. In 
the following year he went to work as a messenger boy for the Oregon-
Washington Railroad and Navigation Company, and during that period formed the 
acquaintance of A. S. Going and John R. Stephens, that being during the 
construction period of that road, 1888-91. Later Mr. Wilson was employed by 
Finch & Campbell, who owned large mining interests, and he was afterward with 
the Hecla Mining Company, becoming foreman of the Hecla plant. He remained 
with that concern until 1903, a period which embraced the serious labor 
troubles at Coeur d' Alene, from 1898 to 1900, one of the worst labor wars in 
the record of this country, during which the Bunker Hill mills were blown up 
and completely destroyed. In 1903 Mr. Wilson went to Pendleton, Oregon, where 
for seven years he served as deputy sheriff under Sheriff Taylor, and in 1910 
he came to Portland and accepted a position as claim adjuster with the Union 
Pacific Railroad. His services were so satisfactory that in 1916 he was 
promoted to the position of assistant general claim agent and in 1921 was 
made, general claim agent, in which capacity he is still serving.
  
     In 1911 Mr. Wilson was united in marriage to Miss Emma Cole, who is a 
native of Ohio, and they are the parents of a daughter, Betty, now seven years 
of age Mr. Wilson has always given his political support to the republican 
party, though he has never taken a very active part in public affairs. He has 
been indefatigable in his attention to the duties of his office, in which he 
has made an enviable record, and is held in high regard by the officers of his 
company, while among his acquaintance his excellent personal qualities have 
gained for him a large measure of esteem.

Additional Comments:
History of the Columbia River Valley From The Dalles to the Sea, Vol. II, 
Pages 797-798

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